of heaven and earth
by Nagasasu
Summary: She goes to Caer Pelyn because she does not remember how to breathe. Post-game.


This was written for the following prompt on the kink meme: _Eirika/Saleh. Eirika learns the air is thinner up in the mountains the hard way. Saleh teaches her how to breathe, or something to that effect... or not. _It was originally meant to be much longer, but alas.

* * *

She moves into the small town of Caer Pelyn intent on finding the way of Valega. There is only the vague remembrance of her having once passed through; only Saleh and Ewan know her.

"I don't know how to breathe anymore," she tells Saleh.

He nods, and shows her into his home.

She stays with him for a season, listening to him in the rare moments when he speak, but most of the time, he lets her alone in solitude to breathe the mountain air and lie against the rough bark of age-old trees.

* * *

She climbs the mountainside, the steep paths winding in rocky serpent coils. She finds the trek harder than she remembers. She circles back to Caer Pelyn, her breathing labored, her lungs not taking in enough air.

"Why can't I breathe?" She laments to herself, but Saleh looks up from his scrolls.

He looks to the sky and then back to her, his hands smoothing out the parchment. "Mountain air is different than the lowlands. Caer Pelyn in particular." He pauses, she can see his mind turning some thought over like a well-worn worry stone. "We believe it is because we are close to the heavens, and so the air is even thinner."

"I don't believe in the heavens."

He merely says, "That is because you do not know Valega yet."

"Teach me," she replies. She does not want to see entrails spread out in bloody offerings, does not want to smell the putrid flesh of demons. Saleh sees the princess – Restoration Queen, he recalls – in the set of her mouth, the angle of her head.

"I will do my best," he says and bows his head.

* * *

He gives her a sword. She refuses it.

"I am done with war," she says.

"No," he says. "Look closer."

She does. There is no edge to the blade.

He nods. "It's ornamental. Even Nada Kuya needed a sword for peace-time."

* * *

"Did you know," he begins, "that Valega is the harmony of body and spirit, of earth and heaven?"

"Yes. You told me yourself long ago."

"I am only a man," he replies, "despite what many think."

* * *

"Long ago my mentor told me… I had the spirit, but I had ignored my body. I see what she meant now."

He sits across from her and splays his fingers against her belly. "From here," he says. "Breathe from here, and feel it rise through your lungs, your chest, your throat and mouth."

* * *

She closes her eyes, and wishes. She wishes so hard for peace, for her country, her people, for herself. She takes gasping breaths, the air running thin, her blood pounding in her wrists. She unlaces the boots for the feel of grass and uneven rock below her.

She looks over the cliff, at the endless valley with its lush greenery, the edges of the Wood where she knows Myrrh slumbers yet. The sun, the air, it slides across the sky. Everything is in such a fragile peace and she _knows_ that this – …this – The sun sinks into he bones, the rocks into her soles, the air into her blood, the mist into her muscle.

She knows, and her chest is so tight-

And everything aligns and it's so blinding, she can't breathe, and just as everything is so clear, her eyes blur with tears.

She unclenches her fists, not realizing the tension until it is gone, and takes in a gasping breath, like she's coming up from the ocean. The world is in that breath.

* * *

She returns to find Saleh sitting. She places the sword between them.

"I am only a child," she says, "but I think I know a little of what you speak of."

"We are all children." He reaches across the sword, and presses his hand to her belly once more. "But you know now."

She places her hand over his, her fingers curling under his palm.

"Yes, I do."

She closes her eyes and they breathe in time.

* * *

"Will you be returning to Renais, now that you have learned how to breathe?"

"No."

She slips her hand into his, and together they watch the sunrise over Caer Pelyn.


End file.
